A 16 Hour Flight (San Francisco to Dubai on Emirates)
Since flying from San Francisco to Dubai via Emirates is a 16 hour flight (!!) I thought I’d share a few tips for anyone who is crazy enough to take the flight:
- If you’re riding in economy, get a seat in the middle of the plane. The layout is 3-4-3, so if you’re in a set of three seats, you’re either stuck at the window and have to annoy two people to get out, or in middle which is never ideal, or the aisle, where you have to get up for two people. I think the row of 4 is better because you can either sit on the aisle and have to get up for only one person, or sit inside and annoy only one person to get out.
- If you’re smarter, the back of the plane actually goes to 2-4-2, so you can sit next to the window, but I do think the plane is a bit louder in the back and there’s lots of flight attendants moving around in the back.
- Try and avoid sitting near the front of each cabin – that’s where babies get put because there’s a hanging bassinet there = lots of crying.
- Foodwise, if you’re vegetarian, order ahead. Otherwise, they do have some pretty good airline food:
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| From Dubai |
- Get up and walk around. You’ll definitely need to stretch your legs from time to time. I did this multiple times between all the movies I watched.
- Speaking of movies, Emirates has a fabulous entertainment system. The screen is really big and you can watch the latest movies – I watched 5 movies on my flight home (State of Play, Terminator: Salvation, Public Enemies, Night at the Museum 2, and Fast and Furious). The quality diminished as the flight went on, but it did kill 10+ hours.
Getting to India is not that easy, as you can tell, but I did prefer this flight route (SFO -> DXB -> HYD) versus the Lufthansa flight that takes you to Germany and then to Hyderabad. The aircraft was much nicer, particularly with the entertainment system, and the food was pretty good. Perhaps the ideal is to take Singapore Airlines from SFO to Singapore with a 1 day layover before making your way to India. I need to budget time to do that leg next time.
You just sold your soul to the Emirates!